good times

Same time, last year, on the other side of the world..

wandering on the north island of new zealand

hat, sweat, heat, walking, hitch-hiking, swearing, loving, full-moon, water, boots, dirt, backpack.

Life is just so relative!

oh sweet 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine

It is odourless and colourless. It is a white powder with the molecular formula C₈H₁₀N₄O₂. This stimulant of the central nervous system is a so called psychoactive drug. Used by millions daily, this xanthine-derivative is metabolised in the human liver into paraxanthine (increasing the hydrolysis of lipids, fueling muscles), theobromine (increases urine volume and dilates blood vessels, thus increasing the amount of oxygen and nutrient flow to brain and muscles) and theophylline (relaxes muscles of bronchi, increasing heart rate and efficiency).

Speaking of stimulant, after crossing the blood–brain barrier (that separates the bloodstream from the interior of the brain), it binds to adenosine receptors on the surface of cells without activating them, acting as competitive inhibitor (preventing the binding of substrate molecules). By counteracting adenosine (supposably protecting the brain by suppressing neural activity), the cerebral blood flow is increased and thus warding off drowsiness and restoring alertness. Although, I am not sure how much is already scientifically proven.
Adenosine itself is used for energy transfers (as adenosine triphosphate ATP and adenosine diphosphate ADP) as well as signal transduction (cyclic adenosine monophosphate cAMP). Wikipedia says: “it is also an inhibitory neurotransmitter, believed to play a role in promoting sleep and suppressing arousal, with levels increasing with each hour an organism is awake.”

Where was I? Oh, I just rediscovered my old filter coffee maker. I don’t know how exactly it works, but it produces about 60 milligrams of this genial substance, also called caffeine, for each cup of coffee. I can’t imagine how I managed to survive only one day without this low technological wonder.
Enjoy up to 4 cups daily, effects from 15 minutes after to about until 4 hours later. Rock on!

BTW: not every organism is built to deal with caffeine! Respect for the scientists who tested the effect on spiders. Caffeinated spiders by NASA, published in New Scientist.

holidays

It’s been a while since I tried to write some potential mind-stimulating words. But, hence there is not much to do after a few months on the road, except the occasional learning, working or exercising of course, there I go..
The anniversary of Christmas, or Xmas for all the hip people, is approaching for all the Christians and modern consumers among you. What took me by surprise is that I do not care about it even a tiniest bit anymore. I am agnostic since years, but it always stayed a kind of get-together for families and friends just shortly before the year-value is increasing. Maybe it has all been far too commercialised. I would say: stripped down to the diapers, Iphone-snapped, photoshopped and uploaded to Facebook. Who would belive it otherwise anyway?

One could argue that this demystification, this growing up is sad, but it actually feels good. It opens the perspective to be above such things as holidays and consumerism. Every need that includes more than pure food, sleep, sex, self-improvement and excretion (in any desired order) is caused either by successful marketing or by far too complex and misleading thoughts of your own. Of course there are more needs. You might even put them into a pyramid like Maslow did. Still, I am sure most of our needs today are built onto a layer I would call something like ‘bonus-effect’. An advertisement example would be: This is the best beer ever! It has zero calories, tastes good as chocolate and you can drink 20 pints of it before regurgitation. You can see the exaggerated problem: every mentioned aspect is pretty cool, but I just do not want my beer to have one of them.

Who knows what we want just because it is shiny, pink or got big eyes?

Peaceful days to you all!

The end of a journey

Well, all good things have an end. I brought you some pictures from Ireland and England at last. So, I’m going to close my world-travel blog section with the following photo from Hyde park.

From british isles

..for now.

Yeah I’ll miss the boredom and the freedom and the time spent alone.
But there is really nothing, nothing we can do.
Love must be forgotten. Life can always start up anew.
MGMT – time to pretend

Week XXXVI

Ireland and England

I am back!
After 256 days of travelling the trip has come to ..let’s say a break. The last week I spent in Ireland and England. Most of the week, I stayed in the capital city Dublin. I guess I can’t really say I’ve been to Ireland since I only spent one day on the countryside, but that’s good for now. Dublin was like everyone expects: rainy but not really wet, cloudy but not really dark and chilly but not really cold. Nevertheless, I was back to Europe and it felt a bit depressing. Something that was quite easy to solve by visiting one of the many pubs – or more..

There will be photos as soon as I’ve solved my temporary living and Internet situation. For now, I have to say it feels awesome to eat dark bread – and, of course, to see my family and friends again.

Lots of plans await my realisation – or at least my tries to. Enthusiastic times – even though the weather gave me a hit on the head (including snowy things). Well, if all else fails, next stop: Mexico!

Week XXXV

USA – New York, New York

New Yorker are ‘children of excitement’ as I will call them from now on. They like morning TV, stars, talking about stars, police with machine guns (at least they don’t mind them), fast food and flags – especially stars and stripes (what better way to describe the flag?). Despite the feeling that half of the cars were taxis and the other half emergency vehicles the city felt quite clean and save. New York is quite a big apple with over eight million people. In some parts it seems like most of them are tourists and the rest policemen – but honestly, NY was a great experience without any troubles.

There are thousand things to see: Central park, Times square, Staten Island, the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn bridge, Rockefeller centre, Empire State building, Flatiron building, Guggenheim museum (among hundred others), Chrysler building, Battery park, Grand Central station, the whole financial district and many more..
I tried the NY hot dog, but in my opinion it tastes kind of artificial and can’t possibly compete with one from Vienna. The soft ice cream and pretzels were surprisingly good though.

But risk a look at: Times square, Manhatten as seen from the Staten Island ferry, Chrysler and Empire State building from the top of the Rockefeller centre at night time, and Brooklyn bridge – over to Brooklyn – just before sunset..

After a week I crossed the Atlantic ocean over to Ireland, Dublin where I stayed till yesterday.

Week XXXIII – XXXIV

Canada – Ontario

Canada was awesome or – to revive the British English – brilliant!
Unfortunately, my backpack is a little too small to take one of those black bears or some moose with me. After Ottawa, Toronto and a trip to the Niagara Falls, I took a 12 hour bus drive to my new location.

I present: Ottawa church, mounties in front of the parliament, Ottawa locks, Niagara Jump and the best shrimp and chicken burrito ever.

Location update: New York, New York.